In-house yet to embrace NewLaw

Despite the widespread discussion of NewLaw firms within the legal industry, only few in-house teams have engaged an alternative legal service supplier, a new UK survey has found.

The vast majority of in-house teams (81.7 percent) reported that they had not made any significant changes to the structure, size, function or composition of their team in the previous 12 months as a result of their use of NewLaw firms, The Lawyer’s Business Leadership report found.

However, 31.6 percent of in-house teams anticipated that they would be making changes in the year ahead as a result of their use of alternative legal services.

According to Keypoint Law CEO Warren Kalinko, the NewLaw model is making inroads with Australian in-house legal teams. “Many in-house teams are embracing NewLaw; but there are still a large number which are yet to try,” he said. “This is often due to a lack of awareness of the new offerings. In other cases, there is a natural conservatism to stay with the status quo.”

In Kalinko’s view, the NewLaw model has a lot to offer in-house teams under pressure to deliver more for less.

“The NewLaw offering can best be described as ‘lean, senior and flexible’. NewLaw models dramatically reduce overhead, eliminate duplication and use advanced technologies. They offer a non-leveraged service – in which clients deal with partners direct. And they emphasise flexible pricing structures and flexible ways of working with the client,” he said.

Kalinko anticipates that the number of high-profile partners switching to NewLaw firms will help to drive awareness of the model and over time lead to more in-house teams being willing to try them.

As the COO of NewLAWu.s., we agree that the adoption rate is slow and the impact in-house has yet to be realized. The US is behind in this trend. Models like NewLAWu.s. are teeing up for the move to firms like ours by investing in technology and recruiting the finest global attorneys we can. One or two corporate "adopters" can change the economics and growth trajectory of our firm. We welcome 31.6% who would be willing to try the new law model.

Marcus McCarthyon
24/06/2015 2:02:36 PM

At this stage only Nexus Law Group and Keypoint offer fully resourced and system connected contract lawyers for in-house placements. They are fully fledged law firms and not just short term secondment/recruitment agencies pretending to be law firms or as an secondary business to a Biglaw. Compared to traditional firms, and even other so called 'NewLaw' businesses, Nexus and Keypoint can far more effectively resource a large corporate on both in in-source/out-source combined basis. Hopefully in-house teams going forward will start to understand the different value proposition on offer and start using the better, more substantial options available in the market already.